Marilyn Monroe Inspires Max Mara's AW15 Collection

Max Mara dedicates its AW15 collection to Marilyn Monroe at Milan Fashion Week…

Something quite lovely happened at Milan Fashion Week yesterday: Max Mara dedicated its AW15 to Marilyn Monroe. Only, it's not quite the Monroe we're all familiar with, which is what makes the collection all the more intriguing…

Marilyn Monroe once said, 'You know, most people really don't know me.' Even today, she's still right. We thought we knew everything there was to know about the Hollywood icon, but today Max Mara not only unveiled a new collection, it unveiled a new way of understanding Monroe, minus the bathing twinsets, red lippy and glossy preconceptions.

Monroe 'the bombshell' was dispensed with in Milan and in her place was 'off-duty' Monroe. Inspired by a single photograph of the star wrapped in cashmere, windswept on the beach in the early Sixties, Max Mara's ode to Marilyn is softer, understated… yet with just a hint of plunging-neckline allure.

Max Mara's Marilyn also harks back to the early Fifties, in the lead-up to the iconic pink satin glamour of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and that halterneck moment in The Seven Year Itch (1955). It's still a little-known secret that in 1951, Monroe was briefly a UCLA night-student who took to the books and became a Renaissance art and literature pupil.

Out with the pin-up bathing suits and in with cashmere sweaters, quilted coats and bomber jackets, figure-hugging pencil skirts and chunky knitwear. It's a collection that can't help but conjure up memories of Monroe's 1953 film noir Niagara, a truly Technicolor moment that defined Monroe's unique contours.

Marilyn Monroe in the Fifties and early Sixties was well and truly on display on the Milan catwalk this week. To celebrate, let's look through some key fashion moments from the starlet's life and career. Her most understated fashion moments – yet all the more beguiling because of it.